


Suburban Mating Call

by Lbilover



Series: Suburban Mating Call Series [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comedy of Errors, M/M, Romantic Comedy, screwball comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-09
Updated: 2016-12-09
Packaged: 2018-09-07 12:57:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8801671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Sean is an anal retentive, somewhat obsessive-compulsive gay accountant, and Elijah is the world's most incompetent garbageman. When they meet over spilled garbage, it's lust at first sight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first in an ongoing series of stories about a gay accountant and the incompetent garbageman who becomes the love of his life.

Sean is a creature of habit, and routine is important to him. Sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of freshly brewed coffee and _The New York Times_ is a soothing ritual, one that gets his day off to a perfect start. 

Except for Mondays and Thursdays, that is. Over the past six weeks, Sean’s tidy routine has been thrown into disarray on Mondays and Thursdays-- and he doesn’t like it one bit. 

_Strive for some self-control, Astin_ , he scolds himself, as a distinctive rumbling noise slowly grows louder and nearer. He shakes out the newspaper between his hands, but the sound is not loud enough to drown out the suburban mating call that lures him from his seat and over to the window: the rusty shriek of brakes as a dark green garbage truck halts at the end of his driveway.

And there he is, jumping down from the back of the truck and scurrying over to Sean’s gleaming stainless steel trashcan: the most attractive garbage man in the history of refuse collection. He hoists the can, muscles straining before Sean’s fascinated eyes and then…

_Crash._

The young man has dropped the trashcan. This comes as no great surprise to Sean; as he has good reason to know, the most attractive garbage man in the history of refuse collection also happens to be the most incompetent. A very similar incident had first drawn Sean’s attention away from his coffee and paper six weeks earlier, and begun his reluctant fascination with this employee working in an occupation that he has previously considered entirely beneath his notice. 

He cracks open the window, the better to hear, and a loud “Fuck!” emerges from a face as angelic as any choirboy’s. The garbage can falls sideways and rolls, spilling its contents; a white plastic trash bag bursts open, spewing coffee grounds, empty Lean Cuisine boxes, and stinky cat food cans all over the immaculately clean macadam. “Oh shit,” the young man exclaims. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_.”

The angelic-looking, if potty-mouthed, garbage man sighs, and starts clearing up the mess he’s created- a mess that Sean will later have to finish clearing up himself with industrial strength cleaner and a hose, so that his driveway is returned to its usual pristine condition. He’s had to do this five times already since this new garbage man has started working on the route past Sean’s home.

Had it been anyone else, Sean would have long ago been on the phone to the refuse removal company, demanding that the young man be fired for his ineptitude. But that would seem distressingly like kicking a hapless puppy, and a confusing mix of protective and lustful emotions overcomes Sean as he watches out the window.

He’s a short and slender young man, completely unsuited to the work he’s being asked to do, and it appears that no one even makes uniforms small enough to fit him, for the cuffs of his navy blue jumpsuit are rolled up several times at both wrists and ankles. But the uniform fits well enough in other areas, and Sean’s gaze is inexorably drawn to his garbage man’s rear as he bends to pick up a Lean Cuisine box and shoves it back into the ruins of the plastic bag.

As if he senses Sean watching, he glances over his shoulder and their eyes instantly meet. It’s not the first time this has happened, but the effect of those immense blue eyes on Sean is even stronger, the pull of attraction even more intense, than before. They stare at each other for some unknown period of time-- seconds, minutes, hours, eternity, Sean has no idea-- and then an irritable voice says, “Jesus, not _again_. Thank god today’s your last day. I’m fucking sick and tired of having to do your work, too.”

A scowling behemoth of a man, who’d easily make two of his slighter coworker, strides over, rights the trashcan and begins throwing the spilled garbage into it.

“Sorry,” the young man apologizes, his cheeks burning with humiliation. He gives Sean a final quick, embarrassed look, and then turns his head away.

But Sean, whose reaction to Behemoth’s scorn on previous occasions has been a nigh overpowering urge to dash outside and punch him in the nose, is too distracted by the phrase ‘today’s your last day’ to notice the derision in the words. He’s suddenly realized that he doesn’t even know the name of the young man who is about to ride off on the garbage truck into the sunset, never to be seen again. 

Sean has tried to convince himself that he’s simply been indulging in a bit of harmless perving from the window, enjoying the sight of his garbage man much as he would enjoy an unusual bird at the feeder or a flower in a neighbor’s garden. Take a nice look, ooh and aah for a while, and then return to his regularly scheduled life, one that didn’t involve garbage men in any way, shape or form.

_I’ve elevated self-deception into an art form_ , Sean thinks as a queasy sensation invades the pit of his stomach, one unrelated to the whiff of ripe garbage that has snuck through the gap in the window.

Trash cleared away, Behemoth dumps it in the gaping maw at the back of the truck, slams the can back down on the driveway so hard it leaves a dent and gives a thumbs up to the driver in the side view mirror. The truck begins to lumber away and the young man scrambles to the side, grabbing the metal handhold and swinging up onto his perch. He stares at Sean as they drive away, and maybe it’s his imagination, but Sean could swear he looks regretful, as if he, too, will miss their silent biweekly communication through the kitchen window.

Sean spies a glint of metal on the driveway. It’s an empty cat food can, one that has been somehow overlooked. On impulse, without stopping to consider, he bolts out of the house and to the end of the driveway, grasping at any excuse, no matter how ridiculous or smelly, to chase after the garbage truck. Within moments, he’s sprinting down the street in hot pursuit, frantically waving the empty can of ‘Gourmet Salmon & Shrimp Feast’. 

Sean catches the garbage truck just as it’s slowing to round a corner. “You _pant_ forgot _pant_ this,” he gasps, thrusting the stinky cat food can at the young man, whose blue eyes have opened wide in astonishment. For a moment Sean fears his offering will be rejected, but then the garbage man leans perilously out and takes it from Sean, looking as if he’s been given some priceless treasure. 

“Thank you,” he says loudly above the rumble of the truck’s engine. “What’s your name?”

“I’m _pant_ Sean,” he pants. “What’s _pant_ your _pant_ name?”

“Elijah.”

Sean is the least impulsive person he knows, but he throws caution to the winds. “Will you _pant_ have dinner _pant_ with me _pant_ tonight, Elijah?”

“I’d love to!” The truck is winning the race, pulling gradually ahead, but Elijah’s delighted smile is beacon-bright. "When and where?"

Ceding victory to the garbage truck, Sean stops, cups his hands around his mouth and yells, "7 o'clock, my place!"

“Great, see you then!”

They wave frantically at each other like lovers parting at a train station until the garbage truck turns another corner and disappears from view. Sean remains standing in the middle of the street, staring at the spot where the truck has vanished, and then a car horn sounds, and an irritable voice says, “Hey, buddy, you’re blocking the road.”

Sean moves, stepping to the side and bowing low, waving the car and its astonished driver past with a sweeping gesture worthy of some Elizabethan courtier. Then, a joyful bounce in his step and a happy smile on his face, he heads home, looking forward to showing his garbage man what it’s like on the other side of the kitchen window.

~end~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean's well-laid plans for dinner with Elijah start to go awry.

A contented smile curling his lips, Sean admires his dining room table, set for two with linen napkins, sterling cutlery, Noritake china, Irish crystal wine glasses and a tasteful small arrangement of dried flowers in a Chinese export porcelain vase. It has been a very long time since he’s had occasion to use his best china, flatware and crystal, or even, for that matter, eat in the dining room, and a heady sense of elation wells up inside him. Momentarily, that is, until he realizes that something is still missing.

The smile turns to a frown as he contemplates the beautifully appointed table. And then it comes to him: candles, of course. He’s forgotten the candles. But perhaps that will be overkill for a first date: too romantic, too intimate. On the other hand, it isn’t, thank god, a business dinner, and a little romantic atmosphere might not go amiss…

“Candles, no candles, candles, no candles,” he chants under his breath, like a lovesick swain pulling petals off a daisy. “Candles, no candles… oh, what the hell, candles.”

The pair of antique silver candlesticks and maroon tapers look nice, he decides a few minutes later, stepping back to observe the effect. Classy. Elegant. But then he frowns again as another thought occurs to him.

Perhaps it would be better to move Elijah’s place setting. He’d intended on seating his ex-garbageman catty-corner to his own spot at the head of the rectangular rosewood dining table. But is that too close? It’s only a first date, after all, and ‘accidentally’ bumping knees or playing footsy is probably premature.

_Besides what if Elijah smells, well, like garbage? Do I really want him sitting that near me?_

Sean picks up a fork and then sets it down, picks it up again and carefully polishes away his fingerprint smudges with a handkerchief before finally replacing it. If he moves Elijah to the opposite end of the table, that will seem ridiculously formal, and Elijah might conclude that Sean has nothing more in mind than a friendly meal. No, he’d best leave Elijah’s place setting alone, and move his to the opposite side. Close, but not too close.

But then again, can one _be_ too close to those mesmerizing blue eyes? So what if Elijah is wearing ‘eau de refuse’ cologne? There will be ample compensations. Sean will simply have to breathe through his mouth, that’s all.

Okay then. He’ll leave everything as it is. 

Maybe. 

No, definitely. 

Well, perhaps.

Argh! Sean clutches at his hair. It has been too long since he’s dipped his toes into the murky, shark-infested waters of the dating pool. He’s totally out of practice… not that he’s ever exactly been a skilled angler, or landed many fish in the first place.

He’s beginning to regret his impulsive dash after the garbage truck, waving that ridiculous empty cat food can. He’s too old, too staid and too set in his ways for that kind of behavior. What had he been thinking? _Oh come now, you’re not that old, staid and set in your ways. You know exactly what you were thinking._ His mind helpfully conjures up the memory of his garbageman bending over to pick up the spilt trash, and his appealingly displayed bottom.

His _ex_ -garbageman, that is. An ex-garbageman who has to be at least ten years younger than Sean is. Suddenly, Sean sees the elegantly set dining room table through younger, hipper eyes, and those younger, hipper eyes are appalled. Dear god, Elijah is going to think that Sean is… _exactly what you are, Sean: dull, boring and respectable._

He glances down at himself through his new younger, hipper eyes, and almost moans aloud in dismay. The table is bad enough, but the casual-but-not-too-casual attire he selected, after what seemed an eternity spent trying on and discarding nearly every item of clothing he possessed, is even worse. 

His light blue Ralph Lauren dress shirt is fresh from the cleaners, his beige chinos are pressed, with a dull, boring and respectable crease, straight as an arrow, down the front. He has on loafers, shined to a mirror hue, loafers that, he realizes now with horror, actually have tassels. And worst of all, he is wearing socks: _white_ ones. He feels like a middle-aged roué in a foreign film intent on seducing his young and innocent... garbageman? 

_Now hang on a minute._ He searches desperately for a straw to cling to. _If you really_ were _a middle-aged roué, you’d be wearing a silk ascot and a bad toupee, and you don’t have either._ It is very small comfort.

Sean wonders if it is possible to reinvent one’s self completely from head to toes in… he consults his gold wristwatch… 15 minutes. _15_ minutes? Oh god. Sean feels the beginnings of panic stirring in his belly. Well, he has time to reinvent his feet at least. 

He strides into his bedroom, and exchanges the loafers for a pair of brown leather walking shoes, feeling minimally better until he recalls that Elijah wore scuffed red Converse All-Stars under the turned up cuffs of his navy blue jumpsuit. The younger man also sports a faux diamond stud in his right ear and the sort of trendy, messy haircut that makes Sean wonder why anyone would pay good money for a look they could achieve themselves by attacking their head with eyes closed and a pair of dull scissors in one hand. 

Then it occurs to him that maybe Elijah _has_ cut his own hair; after all, how desperate must he have been to work as a garbageman? Maybe he’s poor. Destitute even. And here is Sean shoving his upper-middle-class success in Elijah’s face. God, what if Elijah feels embarrassed or uncomfortable?

_How could you be so insensitive, Sean_ , he castigates himself as he ties the laces of his Mephistos. Why hadn’t he opted for his oldest jeans and a tee shirt? Simply ordered a pizza and picked up a couple of six-packs of beer at the liquor store? Instead, after confronting a freezer depressingly filled with boxes of Lean Cuisine frozen entrees, he’d consulted the Rachael Ray cookbook his ever-hopeful mother had given him last Christmas, and selected an easy and hopefully foolproof recipe for chicken piccata over penne pasta. Then he’d made a run to a very upscale supermarket where he spent a small fortune on organic baby greens for the cranberry-walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette he’s got planned, several varieties of designer cheeses, and free-range chicken breasts—as well as a tiramisu for dessert. What the hell, he’d thought at the time. He could forget about his stupid diet for once. Maybe if he got lucky (he’d also thought at the time) he’d be able to burn off the calories with the sort of exercise that didn’t require membership at a fitness club.

That seems a remote possibility now, and Sean cringes to recall the state of almost idiotic self-confidence he’d been in when he pushed his cart into the pharmacy section of the supermarket with an ‘I’m getting some tonight, don’t you wish you were me’ attitude, and selected the appropriate supplies. Supplies that are undoubtedly going to sit, untouched, in the top drawer of the nightstand, where he’d so hopefully placed them just a few hours ago.

He is roused from this orgy of self-doubt by a loud _boom_ that rattles the bedroom windows. The Weather Channel has been predicting the possibility of evening thunderstorms, and it looks as if they’re right. Poor Elijah, Sean thinks, imagining the young man having to walk god-knows-how-far and getting caught in the downpour. Hopefully he can afford a cab ride at least. _I’ll give him a lift home, no matter how much of a disaster the evening is,_ he silently vows.

The thunderclap is followed seconds later by the patter of raindrops on the skylight above his bed. Sean glances up in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning flash overhead, and then unconsciously counts: _one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand…_ BOOM! The peal of thunder is followed almost immediately by the peal of his doorbell.

Elijah has arrived.

As Sean walks nervously to the front door to greet his ex-garbageman, he mentally rehearses the sequence of events he has mapped out with almost military precision. Let Elijah inside, take his jacket/raincoat/umbrella, show him into the living room, offer him a seat and a glass of wine-- Sean is a bit of a wine connoisseur and has selected a very good Pinot Grigio to go with the cheese and crackers, and an even better Chianti to go with the main course-- and then tell Elijah to make himself at home while Sean goes to start their dinner. While the pasta water is boiling, Sean will rejoin Elijah and they can start the getting-to-know-one-another phase. After which he’ll invite Elijah into the kitchen while he finishes making their meal and then--

_Ding, dong._

Argh! While he’s been mentally rehearsing, Elijah has been standing in the pouring rain just on the other side of the door.

_Okay,_ Sean gives himself a last second pep-talk while his palms break out in a sweat. _Remember, dating is like riding a bicycle. You never forget._ He reaches for the doorknob and turns it. _Too bad you always sucked at riding a bike._

“Hi!” Elijah says brightly from under the shelter of his denim jacket that he has pulled up over his head to protect it from the rain that is coming down in buckets.

“Hi,” Sean replies, practically having to shout to be heard over the sound of the rain, “come on in.” He holds the door open and stands back as Elijah hops inside, shedding water like a Golden Retriever that has just emerged from a lake. As he moves to close the door, Sean notices a car parked at the curb. Thank goodness Elijah has access to wheels, he thinks, and then realizes that the car is a silver Porsche Boxter. _Pain in the ass neighbors. Always telling their friends it’s fine to park in front of his house so they end up blocking his driveway or the front walk._ But there are much more important things to worry about, like the entire evening that looms ahead of him and how he is going to prevent it from turning into a total disaster.

“Let me take your jacket, Elijah,” Sean offers after shutting the door, and tries not to notice how the young man is dripping water and leaving Chuck-shaped footprints all over his immaculately clean oyster-colored Italian tile floor.

“Thanks,” Elijah says, and as Sean helps him out of the damp denim, he takes a discreet sniff, but there is not the slightest trace of moldy bread, sour milk, rotten fruit or anything else unpleasant hovering about his ex-garbageman. In fact, it’s quite the reverse. 

Sean now knows exactly what heaven must smell like. 

He’s fervently glad that he decided against rearranging the table seating after all, although with Elijah standing so close, using his small fingers to wipe away the streaks of moisture that glisten on his pale cheeks, Sean isn’t sure he can even locate the dining room, much less the table... Those amazing blue eyes, framed by spiky black eyelashes dotted with rain droplets, hold him spellbound. 

_Stop staring, Sean,_ a voice like his mother’s scolds him. _It’s rude._

“I’ll just, ah, put your jacket away.” Sean manages to wrench his gaze free. The last thing on earth he wants to hear at this moment is his mother’s voice. “In the coat closet. I have one, you know. Right over here.” _Oh brilliant, Sean._ He mentally cringes as he drapes the jacket over a wooden hangar and hangs it up. _Get a grip._

He turns back to Elijah, determined to stick to his previously rehearsed script and stop making an ass of himself, and sees that the young man is holding out a brown paper bag.

“I brought a bottle of wine,” Elijah says. “White. I figured it was a safer bet than red since I didn’t know what we were having for dinner.”

“You didn’t have to do that, but thanks,” Sean replies, taking the bag from Elijah, afraid to look inside it for fear of what he will find. _Whatever it is, no matter how awful, you’ll drink it and say it’s fantastic._ “White wine is fine; we can have it with our main course.” He mentally returns the Chianti to the wine rack and pulls the bottle out of the bag by the neck. Then stares at the label in surprise; the wine turns out to be a superb Riesling that should go perfectly with their meal. 

“I hope it’s okay,” Elijah says a little anxiously. “The guy at the liquor store recommended it. I’m mostly a beer drinker myself,” he adds.

Sean’s heart sinks. _I knew it. I just knew it._

“It’s more than okay, Elijah,” Sean says aloud, while he is torn between wanting to thank the guy at the liquor store for his excellent suggestion and strangling him with his bare hands. He can guess what this wine must have cost, and no way is it within the budget of an unemployed ex-garbageman. 

But poor people have their pride, after all, so Sean only lowers the bottle back into the paper bag and says, “Let’s go into the living room, shall we? I have some refreshments ready. Nothing very fancy,” he hastens to add, as if Elijah might be expecting Beluga caviar and _foie gras_ , “but I thought you might appreciate something to nibble on while I get dinner ready.” _Because you probably spent every spare penny you possess on this Riesling._

“That’d be great, Sean,” Elijah enthuses, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “I’m starving.” 

_Starving?_ Oh god. Guilt assails Sean. Elijah probably hasn’t had a decent meal all day, his last cent having gone to the bottle of wine for Sean. But pasta and chicken are filling, aren’t they? And there is the tiramisu… Elijah can eat the entire thing. Even as the thought runs through Sean’s brain, there is another tremendous crack of thunder.

BOOM!

The hall lights flicker and go out; the house is plunged into total darkness. 

“Uh-oh, looks like a power failure,” Elijah’s remarkably cheerful and disembodied voice says. “But we can eat dinner by candlelight. It’ll be romantic.”

Words that would have caused Sean’s heart to take flight-- if he hadn’t just remembered that his stove is electric.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things only get worse for poor Sean in his attempt to woo his ex-garbageman.

_Okay, don’t panic_ , Sean tells himself. _Power outages usually only last a few minutes. At least now you know it was the right move to put those candles on the table._

But at that precise moment, the sound of wailing sirens can be heard over the drum of rain on the roof. 

“That doesn’t sound good,” Elijah comments.

“No, it doesn’t. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious and the power comes back soon.” Sean struggles not to sound defeatist, but with the sort of fatalism a mouse must experience when he’s staring into the hypnotic eyes of a snake with which he’s unexpectedly come face to face, Sean accepts that the power won’t come back on anytime soon. He’s never before cared so much about making a good impression on anyone. Ergo, he’s screwed.

“No biggie if it doesn’t, Sean.” There’s an invisible shrug implicit in Elijah’s words. “Hey, it’ll be fun, like an adventure. We can pretend we’re on a camping trip or something.”

Sean is glad Elijah can’t see his instinctive grimace. He loathes camping. Insects, dirt and shared bathroom facilities. Ugh. But a sudden image of a cozy little pup tent for two pops into his brain. Maybe camping could be pretty wonderful under the right circumstances, come to think of it… He’s discovering that it’s impossible to feel down around his ex-garbageman. Elijah is so upbeat, so positive. _So completely unlike you._

“But we don’t want to be bumbling around in the dark. You could get hurt if you slip on this wet tile,” Sean cautions, trying to keep his mind on the present, not on visions of sipping hot cocoa with marshmallows by a crackling campfire with Elijah snuggled at his side, or making sweet love in that pup tent to the music of chirping crickets and ribbiting frogs. “Stay put while I find a flashlight.”

“Okay,” Elijah says agreeably.

_Is he always this agreeable?_ Sean wonders as he takes a tentative step forward in the dark. _This good-natured? This cheerful? This…_

_Thump._

He has bumped into a slender but surprisingly muscular and warm body. 

“Sorry,” he and Elijah apologize simultaneously, stepping quickly apart, but Sean isn’t sorry at all. God, Elijah feels… he feels…

_No, no. Flashlight. Must get flashlight._

He makes another attempt to move past Elijah, but as if they’re parodying Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx in that old episode of _I Love Lucy_ that Sean adores, they’ve both moved in the same direction, face to face, and Sean finds his way blocked again by a body that, on second contact, feels even more muscular and warm and… mmmmmm…

Dimly, Sean recalls that there is something important he is supposed to be doing, but for the life of him, he no longer has the faintest idea what it might be. 

_Oh right. Flashlight._ He mentally snaps his fingers. 

Praying the third time will be the charm, Sean sets his teeth and, like a child playing ‘Mother May I’, takes one giant step to the left and one giant step forward. But apparently Elijah is receiving the same unspoken commands because-- 

_Thump._

This time they meet breast-to-breast and thigh-to-thigh, and enticing whiffs of heavenly Elijah-scent set Sean’s senses swimming, while his body, especially a certain part of it, bursts into flame, and not from the heat of embarrassment. If they run into each other a fourth time, Elijah will end up spending his entire visit on his back on the wet tile, and not because he’s slipped and fallen.

“Sorry,” Elijah says again, and then he giggles, a high-pitched, supremely _giggly_ giggle. 

Now, if there is one type of guy Sean has been absolutely, positively convinced he will never, ever be involved with, it’s a guy who giggles. For one thing, he has always considered it the vocal equivalent of nails screeching on a blackboard. And for another, it’s so… well, so _gay_. But all Sean can think at the moment is how much he wishes Elijah would giggle again, because if Elijah smells like heaven, his giggle is the equivalent of a dozen angels sitting on fluffy white clouds, strumming golden harps and singing. 

Uh-oh.

For some reason, the Unsuitable Dating Material alarm in Sean’s brain, the one that usually goes off with bells and flashing lights when he’s identified an irritating habit in a prospective beau, has malfunctioned. Instead of shrieking ‘Danger! Danger!’ the way it usually does, it is completely silent. Or perhaps another part of Sean’s brain, the Mindless Lust sector, has smashed the Unsuitable Dating Material alarm into bits. For which Sean is eternally grateful, because he doesn’t want to be warned away from Elijah, he wants, he wants…

A loud rumbling noise distracts him. Sean isn’t certain if it’s thunder or the stomach of his starving ex-garbageman, but it reminds him that he needs to get his mind off sex and back to flashlights, before Elijah passes out from inanition.

Sean pulls himself together and makes a supreme effort. “Elijah, the only way this is going to work is if you stand still and I do the moving.”

_Oh dear god. Did he really just say that?_

“Ok-k-ay,” Elijah replies, but his voice is trembling.

“Are you laughing?” Sean asks suspiciously.

“N-no,” Elijah begins. “Well, y-yes. I'm s-sorry, but you have to admit that was k-kind of f-funny.” And then he giggles again. 

Gay has never sounded so glorious.

Gathering the shreds of his dignity, Sean tries to summon the willpower to leave his giggling, heavenly-smelling ex-garbageman. Only by actually visualizing Elijah passing out (hitting his head and ending up comatose in the hospital, and it is entirely Sean’s fault, and how will he _ever_ explain it to Elijah’s parents, assuming he has them, of course, and isn’t an orphan or, even worse, homeless and completely alone, and without any medical insurance, but that’s okay, Sean will pay all his hospital bills…) can he do so. Hand outstretched so that he doesn’t bump into anything else in the dark- there being only one thing in the house worth bumping into, and that regretfully is behind him now- he stumbles off in search of a flashlight, clutching the bottle of Riesling like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver.

***

Sean locates the flashlight in the utility room, along with a dozen storm candles that he keeps as part of his ‘earthquake preparedness kit’ along with extra batteries and a fire extinguisher (in the event the storm candles set the house on fire), bottled water and MREs, space blankets and a first aid kit. He rescues Elijah from the black pit of his front hall and leads him into the living room, which now is softly illumined by the flickering yellow glow of several of the storm candles.

Elijah has taken a seat on a flowered chintz sofa that clashes horribly with his orange plaid button down and nubby brown tie—a tie that Sean would be willing to bet any amount of money is made from good old 100% American polyester, without one single thread of imported silk. His faded jeans have ragged holes through which his bony kneecaps peek enticingly, alerting Sean to a knee fetish of which he was previously completely unaware. His Chucks—black this time, not red—are scuffed and the rubber is shiny with wear. 

Elijah probably buys his clothes at a thrift shop, Sean decides, or perhaps he even finds them in the Good Will bin. His heart goes out to the young man, but his brain is otherwise occupied contemplating the seemingly impossible fact that Elijah looks entirely gorgeous even while entirely at odds with the carefully chosen and oh-so-tasteful living room décor.

Electric stove notwithstanding, the power failure has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Elijah and candlelight were clearly destined for each other, Sean discovers, and he wonders why Edison ever had the ridiculous impulse to invent the light bulb. In fact, Sean now understands how an art scholar must feel in the presence of the Mona Lisa for the first time. As he fills a crystal wine goblet with Pino Grigiot, his eyes keep straying to Elijah’s face, to its subtle hollows and intriguing angles emphasized by the golden light that gives his skin a cast like warm honey. His eyes are mysterious midnight blue pools into which Sean might fall and drown, his lips are…

_Shit._ Wine slops over the rim of the glass and splashes over his hand and drips onto the burled walnut coffee table. He grabs a linen napkin and mops up the spill, and then holds out the over-full glass to Elijah, grimacing at his gaucheness in treating a good wine that way. But then again, Elijah said he’s a beer drinker, so maybe he won’t notice, and besides, as Elijah takes the glass, his fingers touch Sean’s and seem to linger… or maybe that is just Sean’s overactive imagination (not to mention the Mindless Lust sector) coming into play.

Sean pours himself some Pinot- filling the goblet precisely two-thirds of the way- and gently swirls it, breathing deeply of the bouquet. Then he takes a fortifying gulp, swishing the wine around his mouth first before swallowing. He catches Elijah watching him with those midnight blue pools of mystery, and hopes he isn’t coming off as a pretentious ass. Uneasily, Sean recalls that his brother has, on more than one occasion, called him 'Frasier', and he definitely hasn't meant it as a compliment.

Quickly setting down his glass, Sean occupies himself instead with loading a plate with cheese and crackers for Elijah. He gives serious consideration to placing the entire round of Brie on his starving ex-garbageman's plate, but decides that that would be a trifle excessive. He compromises and cuts a giant wedge, and then adds giant wedges of Manchego and Chevrefeuille and a small mountain of gourmet water crackers in five different varieties.

"Here you go," Sean says, handing the plate across the table.

Elijah looks a little taken aback as he accepts it; no doubt that’s because he has to set his Pinot down and use both hands to keep from dropping the overburdened china. 

Okay, so perhaps he _did_ go a little overboard with the cheese…

“Um,” Elijah begins tentatively, eyebrows raised, but Sean jumps in before Elijah can say anything more.

“I know it’s a lot of, ah, cheese, but I’m afraid dinner isn’t going to be… well, quite as I’d planned,” Sean explains, feeling as guilty as if he's about to confess to being a serial killer with a dozen bodies buried in the backyard. “My stove’s electric, you see, so I can’t cook anything until the power comes back on- if it ever does, that is," he interjects glumly, "and I don’t want you to go hungry.” 

A smile tugs at Elijah’s lips. “There’s enough cheese here to feed the entire supporting cast of _Willard_ ,” he jokes, “but you’re very sweet to worry about me, Sean.”

Sweet? No one has ever called Sean ‘sweet’ before. A stubborn pain in the ass, yes. An anal-retentive, borderline obsessive-compulsive neat freak, definitely. But ‘sweet’? A species of melty, gooey sensation liquefies Sean’s insides. _Elijah thinks I’m sweet._ But creeping doubt immediately follows. Puppies are sweet. Kittens are sweet. Frolicking lambs and baby bunny rabbits are sweet. Shouldn't Elijah think Sean is... he gropes for the correct word... 'hot'?

As Elijah digs a sesame cracker into the crumbly Chevrefeuille, Sean tries to ignore his deflated ego and says reassuringly, "But you won't have only cheese and crackers to eat, Elijah. We’ll be having a nice cranberry and walnut salad with raspberry vinaigrette and then tiramisu for dessert."

Elijah has popped the goat-cheese-covered cracker into his mouth and is now licking the crumbs from his lips with a humming sound indicative of pleasure. Vaguely, through the Mindless Lust induced haze that descends over him at the sight of that pink tongue flicking along those even pinker lips, Sean hears Elijah say, "Tiramisu? Ooh, I love tiramisu. You know, Sean, we _could_ skip the cheese and salad and go right for the dessert."

Is it his imagination, or is Elijah giving him a suggestive look? A look that implies that the dessert he wants to go right for isn't really tiramisu? Or possibly includes the tiramisu as part of a grander plan? From under slightly lowered eyelids, Elijah meets his gaze and that delicate pink tongue flicks out again.

It is! It _is_ a suggestive look. ELIJAH IS FLIRTING WITH HIM! Maybe he actually does find Sean hot. Sweetly hot. Or hotly sweet. Or…

_Okay, okay_ , Sean thinks, taking mental deep, calming breaths to still the panic rising inside him, _you can do this. You can flirt back. It's not that difficult. Now you just have to come up with something flirtatious to say in response._

Desperately he tries, but his mind has gone as blank as if an evil witch had attended his christening and placed an anti-flirtation curse on him.

After waiting a few moments in hopeful expectation of being flirted back with, Elijah looks away and bright spots of red are burning on his cheeks. _Oh no!_ Sean realizes that Elijah must think his flirting was unwelcome. Oh, if only real life was like a DVD and he could simply scan back to the previous moment, hit pause until he comes up with some suitably flirtatious repartee, and then hit play again.

But alas, real life isn’t like a DVD. The clock ticks on; the window of opportunity closes. Elijah spreads some Brie over another cracker, and, having apparently decided that tiramisu is no longer a welcome topic of conversation, utters the fateful question, the one Sean has been dreading ever since he impulsively asked his ex-garbageman to have dinner with him: “So, what exactly do you do for a living, Sean?” 

Images of the Titanic sinking slowly into the icy waters of the Arctic flash through Sean's mind as he prepares to tell him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Sean! Sean, Sean, Sean...

As the Titanic sinks into the frigid black depths, Sean sinks into a chair and confesses the awful truth. “I’m the vice-president of an accounting firm in the valley,” he says, as if admitting to another dozen-odd bodies, this time buried in the basement.

Elijah balances the cheese-heavy plate on his knees and leans forward. With an earnest expression in those amazing blue eyes, he says, “Really? That sounds interesting.”

_Oh Cruelty, thy name is Elijah._

But then Sean realizes that there is not a trace of mockery, not a hint of sarcasm, in his ex-garbageman’s voice. He means the comment honestly and sincerely. And that’s when the truth strikes Sean with stunning force: that heavenly scent, that choir-of-angels-on-fluffy-clouds-strumming-golden-harps-and-singing giggle… They aren’t a coincidence. Because Elijah IS, in fact, an angel, an actual, honest-to-goodness angel who has been sent down from heaven for the sole purpose of… 

…collecting his garbage? 

_Yeah right, Sean, like God is really going to send an angel that looks and smells and sounds like Elijah down to earth for any reason, much less to pick up trash. God isn’t stupid, you know. If Elijah were an angel, He wouldn’t let him take one step past the Pearly Gates, but would keep him sitting on the nearest and fluffiest cloud, simply for the sheer, undiluted pleasure of looking at him. The other angels would spend their days bringing Elijah ambrosia or nectar or whatever the hell it is that angels eat, and thinking up ways to make him giggle..._

Okay, Sean reluctantly concludes that maybe Elijah isn’t _literally_ an angel, but surely no ordinary human being would say “Really? That sounds interesting,” to the vice-president of an accounting firm and mean it. People _always_ have one of two reactions when Sean tells them what he does for a living: either a polite and extremely unenthusiastic “Oh?” the sort of “Oh?” that, when translated, actually means: “I’ve made my token show of interest and now, dear god, whatever you do, don’t bore the pants off me by telling me anything more about your duller than dirt job,” or a request for Sean to do their/their spouse’s/significant other’s/aunt’s/uncle’s/brother’s/sister’s/parent’s/second cousin’s cousin’s daughter’s ex-boyfriend’s grandmother’s income taxes. For free, of course.

But not Elijah… Elijah, who is gazing at Sean as if being vice-president of an accounting firm is somehow equivalent to flying the space shuttle or leading expeditions up Mount Everest. And for one moment, one glorious, ego-inflating moment, Sean feels as if it is, as if he could babble on for endless hours about S-corporations and pension investment plans and accumulated depreciation, and Elijah will hang on every witty, fascinating detail.

But even _Elijah_ can’t make that delusional state last, because the sad truth is, Sean’s job _is_ duller than dirt. 

“Well, no, it’s not very interesting at all,” he says apologetically.

Elijah appears genuinely puzzled; his eyebrows contract and he frowns slightly. “But… surely there’s _something_ interesting about your job,” he says, waving a cracked pepper water cracker in the air before digging it into the Chevrefeuille.

“I’m afraid not,” Sean replies, and can’t help feeling like the sort of rotten adult who traumatizes young children by telling them that there really is no Santa Claus.

But Elijah is apparently not that easily convinced that there is no Santa Claus. In fact, Sean would be willing to bet that he’s never stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy either (that same blessed Tooth Fairy who bestowed upon Elijah the fascinating little gap between his two front teeth that calls to Sean’s mind all sorts of dental fantasies, not one of which has to do with brushing or flossing). 

“Oh come on, Sean. There has to be _something_. Look, tell me one interesting fact about your job. Don’t agonize over it,” he adds quickly as if he’s caught on to the fact that Sean keeps zoning out on him, “just tell me the first thing that comes into your head.”

_I’d like to undress you, very slowly, and then dribble this wine over your naked body and lick it off, drop by drop…_

For one terrifying, heart-stopping moment, Sean is afraid that he has actually told Elijah the first thing that came into his head, but Elijah’s expression hasn’t changed. Sean’s heart lurches back into action, like an arthritic racehorse.

“Well, let’s see.” His brain feels as if it’s made up of dozens of tiny hamsters in wheels, running frantically in place and going nowhere. “Um, we do have a few celebrity clients,” he says.

“You do?” Those midnight blue pools of mystery are now shimmering, sparkling sapphires, reflecting the flickering light from the storm candles in the most mesmerizing fashion possible. “See, I _knew_ there was something interesting about your job. So, tell me who they are,” he urges, wriggling a little on the sofa with anticipation.

Sean has no idea. The sight of Elijah wriggling his ass on the flowered chintz, that same perfect ass that Sean has admired so often through the kitchen window, is more than his poor, overloaded, hamster-riddled brain can handle. 

“Just minor celebrities,” he temporizes. “Nobody you’d know.” Actually, Sean is pretty sure he’s wrong about that. There’s that actor guy for one, Brad somebodyorother, and that Tom whatshisname, too, not to mention Julia whoeversheis. He feels quite certain that later, when his mind has returned to normal—if it ever does—he’ll easily be able to remember who they are, but for now it’s an impossible mission even to picture their faces. And after all, who wants to visualize mere Hollywood megastars when angelic perfection is sitting on the other side of the coffee table, clashing horribly with the upholstery? Certainly not Sean.

“Oh.” Elijah is clearly disappointed by Sean’s answer, for he has stopped wriggling. _Useless hamsters_ , Sean thinks bitterly. “Well, I expect even minor celebrities are interesting,” he says brightly, and Sean adds the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin to the list apocryphal beings in whom Elijah probably still believes.

It suddenly occurs to Sean that, as this is the ‘getting to know you’ phase of his master plan for the evening, it might be his turn to ask about Elijah’s job. Or lack thereof. But what can he say? _So, what was it like to be a garbageman, Elijah? Did you major in refuse removal in college? Have you applied for unemployment benefits yet?_

And that gives Sean an idea, one that (for a wonder) doesn’t revolve around having sex with his ex-garbageman. As an accountant, he is uniquely qualified to offer Elijah assistance in his time of need, and not simply by inundating him with cheese. They can discuss Elijah’s financial and career options; perhaps Sean can arrange a low interest loan for him, or, or… HE CAN HIRE HIM TO WORK AT THE ACCOUNTING FIRM! Elijah can be his personal assistant! 

His own sheer brilliance staggers Sean. A vision pops into his mind then, of him and Elijah working cozily side-by-side at Tell, Pearce, Arnaz and Astin. Sean imagines how it will be: how every day on their lunch break, they will have wild monkey sex behind the closed doors of Sean’s office, under and on his desk, in his chair, on the leather couch, among the carefully nurtured potted plants... 

Oops. So okay, maybe this idea has to do with sex, too, but still…

“Sean?” Elijah’s voice penetrates Sean’s brain, which has once again been temporarily hijacked by the Mindless Lust sector. 

Uh-oh. It’s obviously not the first time Elijah has said his name.

“Are you okay?” Elijah is looking at him strangely. “You know, drinking alcohol on an empty stomach isn’t a very good idea, Sean. Maybe you should have some of this cheese.” He spreads more Chevrefeuille on a cracker.

Oh no! Elijah thinks he’s drunk! _All right, enough is enough,_ Sean decides. _I really, really am going to get a grip now. I swear it._

“Come on,” Elijah is saying coaxingly, “have some cheese.” He holds out the cracker, and smiles.

That’s all it takes. Sean’s good intentions are sent straight to hell, clutched tightly in the grip of Mindless Lust, as Elijah’s smile reveals the fantasy-inducing gap between his two front teeth and emphasizes the faint shininess of curved lips that have minute specks of cracker crumbs and Chevrefeuille simply begging to be kissed away.

“Well, all right, if you insist,” Sean says, but he has absolutely no idea whatsoever what he has just agreed to. Jumping off the roof of the house? Shaving off his eyebrows? Getting (shudder) a tattoo on his ass? Well, if it’s an elegantly scripted tattoo of Elijah’s name, framed by tasteful angel wings, maybe it won’t be so bad…

Dim light pierces the lust-haze. Cheese! Elijah wants to feed him cheese! How romantic, how intimate, how—

_snap_

Sean has set aside his wine and leaned forward, mouth open to receive the precious gift, but Elijah—perhaps understandably hesitant in light of the previous flirtation debacle—has only been intending to hand the cracker to Sean. The cracker hits Sean squarely in the chin, breaks in half, and a lump of stinky smelly greasy goat cheese is deposited on his immaculate chino-covered thigh.

There is an appalled silence. The lump of cheese slides slowly off Sean’s thigh, leaving a grease trail, and falls onto the carpet.

“Shit,” Elijah says contritely. “I’m so sorry.” He swiftly bends to pick up the broken cracker that has landed, upside down of course, on the beautifully finished burled walnut coffee table. 

“No, no, it’s entirely my fault.” At the same precise moment Sean bends to pick up the lump of Chevrefeuille, and their foreheads meet with an audible ‘thwack’.

“Fuck!” 

“Ouch!”

Wincing and clapping his hand to his stinging forehead, Sean looks up; his eyes meet Elijah’s, bare inches away, and pain—as well as the pressing need to find a stain stick as soon as possible—vanishes in an instant. Eclipses, Sean thinks. Elijah’s eyes are like eclipses—not midnight pools or sparkling sapphires at all. There are golden rays shooting out from behind the dark pupils… as if the sun has been trapped inside them…

Time stutters and stops. Sean stares into Elijah’s eyes; Elijah is staring back. It’s like those moments of communication through the kitchen window when so much was said without words. Only now there is no Behemoth lurking behind the garbage truck, ready to spring out and destroy the moment. Sean can stare and stare and stare and…

_beep beep beep beep beep_

_Shit!_ Sean straightens, fingers fumbling for the tiny button on his watch. He’s totally forgotten he’d set the alarm so he’d know precisely when to go into the kitchen to put the pasta water on to boil. Why oh why hadn’t he thought to turn it off? Shit, shit, shit. Elijah has straightened, too, looking a trifle self-conscious and definitely regretful at the interruption. But Sean is immediately distracted by the sight of a small red lump on Elijah’s flawless porcelain-smooth forehead, a lump that _he_ has put there. Guilt and worry swamp Sean, sending Mindless Lust scampering away, and he leaps to his feet.

“Come on,” he says urgently. “Let’s go.”

Baffled and bewildered, Elijah stares up at him. “Go where?”

“The hospital. The emergency room.”

“Why? Are you ill?” 

_Maybe that explains your bizarre behavior._ Sean feels certain the words are hovering unspoken on Elijah’s lips. He wants to sink right through the expensive Berber carpet and into the ground. “No, no, I’m not ill. But your head… you might have a concussion or even a skull fracture…”

Elijah giggles, and Sean sternly glares at the Mindless Lust sector already creeping back into view: _now is not the time_ , he admonishes it, _Elijah is injured._

“Sean, don’t be ridiculous. It’s just a little bump. I’m perfectly fine.”

It occurs to Sean then that if he _does_ take Elijah to the emergency room, the doctor will have to test his pupil reaction in case he has a concussion. In his imagination, he can vividly picture the scene: the handsome, rich, brilliant emergency room doctor (who bears a striking resemblance to a young George Clooney) taking out his pen light to stare into those glorious blue eyes and falling instantly and madly in love. Elijah will, of course, fall instantly and madly in love, too (how could he resist a handsome, rich and brilliant George Clooney look-alike?) and six months from now, at their commitment ceremony, Elijah, with tears sparkling in his eyes, will thank Sean for being the means of bringing him and George together. After which Sean will find the nearest bridge and jump off.

“Hmm. Maybe you’re right,” Sean concedes, “but we do need to put some ice on that lump as soon as possible. Let’s just go along to the kitchen, shall we? I need to start our dinner now anyway.” _Such as it is…_

“All right.” Elijah, ever agreeable, sets down his plate. “You know, Sean, you really are very, very,” Sean grits his teeth and mentally prepares himself for the dreaded ‘S’ word that he is sure Elijah would _never_ use to describe George Clooney, “sweet. And I’m very, very sorry about your pants.”

Elijah’s eyes have moved to the dark grease stain marring the dull, boring and respectable beige chinos, but Sean doesn’t think it’s his imagination that that crotch-level blue gaze is straying slightly to the left. Now, if an evil witch had put an anti-flirtation curse on Sean at his christening, then some other witch, a good one, had also turned up and done her best to compensate by endowing him in other areas. However, if he lets himself dwell on the possibility that Elijah is actually checking out that fortunately blessed part of him, there will definitely be more than one lump needing icing, so he quickly turns away and grabs one of the storm candles.

“That’s okay,” Sean reassures him, and as a means of distracting himself from the insistent clamoring of his lower body, begins mentally reviewing the laundering techniques he will have to employ in order to remove the grease stain from his pants: apply stain stick, soak, pre-rinse, gentle cycle with Woolite, tumble dry on low, iron… It works. He picks up another of the storm candles, and turns back to Elijah. “Here, take this candle.” 

Elijah, seeming a tad subdued, does, and they proceed in silence to the kitchen. The rain is still coming down in buckets, and a glance out the window as they walk down the hall shows that every other house in the neighborhood is dark as well. Sean sighs. Salad and tiramisu it will have to be.

“So,” Elijah says brightly as they enter the kitchen, “this is your kitchen. I’ve been really curious about it, trying to imagine what it’s like.”

“You have?” Sean suddenly feels as if sunlight is flooding into the room. Elijah has been curious about him, too! He floats across the Italian tile floor to the stainless steel Bosch refrigerator and opens the freezer. There, among the myriad Lean Cuisines, which he will probably have to throw out if the power doesn’t come back on soon, he locates a bag of frozen peas and removes it. “You really have been curious?” 

“Oh yes,” Elijah continues. He has hoisted himself onto the kitchen table and his bottom is planted in precisely the same spot that Sean does _The New York Times_ crossword puzzle every morning (except, of course, those very distracting Monday and Thursday mornings). He will have to find another spot to do his crossword puzzle, Sean decides. That spot will forever now be hallowed ground, sacred to Elijah’s perfect ass. “It definitely helped me get through the mornings, wondering about you and your kitchen.” Elijah gazes around the dimly lit room. “It’s really nice.” 

_I helped him get through the mornings!_ Sean is too choked up with emotion to reply. He starts to carry the bag of frozen peas to Elijah when he notices the hideous pea illustration decorating the plastic bag. Pea green. Ugh. Sean _loathes_ pea green. It's his least favorite color. Once a potential date had attempted to compliment Sean by saying that his eyes were as green as peas, thus sending the Unsuitable Dating Material alarm into full Rejection Mode. What if Elijah were to see the peas and make the same comparison? It might be fatal, especially if the Unsuitable Dating Material alarm turned out not to be smashed after all. Could even Mindless Lust overcome the dreaded words ‘green as peas’? 

Sean quickly opens a drawer in the Crema Botticino-colored Corian counter topped kitchen island and takes out an embroidered Irish linen tea towel. He wraps it around the plastic bag, hiding the loathed pea illustration from view. There! He should be safe now.

“Put this on the swelling,” Sean says, handing the makeshift ice pack to Elijah.

“What is it?” Elijah asks curiously as he places it over the lump.

“Frozen, um, vegetables,” Sean replies, admiring the way the creamy color of the linen tea towel--Sean’s best, but nothing less is worthy to touch that noble brow and porcelain skin--complements Elijah’s complexion. “I always keep some in the freezer for an emergency. They work better than an ice pack, you know.”

“Really? Wow, you’re so clever.” Elijah beams at Sean. “I never would have thought of that.”

_Clever._ Well, it’s a step up from ‘sweet’, Sean thinks, if not quite on a par with ‘hot’. “My trainer told me about it when I pulled a hamstring,” he admits, his innate truthfulness not allowing him to take credit for the idea.

“Oh, are you an athlete?” Elijah’s eyes travel slowly up and down Sean’s body. “You look like you’re in great shape,” he adds admiringly. “What kind of sports do you play?”

_Come up to my bedroom and I’ll show you._ There’s another of those terrifying moments when Sean isn’t certain if he’s spoken his thought aloud or not. But Elijah is simply waiting patiently for Sean’s answer, swinging his legs so that distracting glimpses of his pale bony knees flash before Sean’s fascinated eyes. 

When Sean opens his mouth to reply he is honestly intending to tell Elijah the truth, that he works out at the gym regularly, and plays squash three days a week. But then an insidious little voice in his brain pipes up: _Frasier and Niles Crane play squash._

“Curling,” Sean blurts out. “I’m a curler.”

“Curling?” Elijah repeats in surprise, the motion of his legs stilling. “What the heck is that?”

Good question. Sean himself has only the vaguest idea.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean gets tangled in a web of untruths. Can he ever untangle himself??

“You’ve never heard of curling?” Sean asks, feigning astonishment in order to buy himself some time and come up with a convincing explanation for what it is. 

The swinging legs still, putting a temporary halt to Sean’s budding knee fetish. “Geez, no, I haven’t,” Elijah admits, sounding embarrassed. “I’m not really into sports that much,” he adds, and now he sounds both apologetic and worried, as if Sean will hold it against him. “My last boyfriend was really into baseball, but I just couldn’t get into it, you know? It was one of the reasons we broke up. He was pissed at me ‘cause I didn’t like to go to the games with him.”

_The bastard!_ Sean is outraged. Even more, he is flabbergasted that anyone could actually choose baseball- _baseball!_ \- over Elijah. Clearly the former boyfriend was demented, or possibly he was an alien pod-person who had no clue what real human behavior was supposed to be like. It was the only conceivable explanation. Certainly Sean would never, _ever_ choose curling over Elijah, not in a million years. 

The fact that he barely knows what curling is and doesn’t play it seems, at that moment, completely immaterial, and besides, he has to wipe the worried expression from Elijah’s face.

“Curling is a rather obscure sport, so don’t feel too badly, Elijah,” he hastily reassures him. “Most people are unfamiliar with it. It’s Canadian,” he offers, as if, like Elijah’s ex-boyfriend, Canadians are also pod-people from outer space. (Which, based on his admittedly limited knowledge of curling, he suspects they might well be.)

“Oh. Are you from Canada?” comments Elijah in surprise. “You sure don’t sound like it.”

“No, no, but a lot of non-Canadians curl, too, even here in sunny southern California,” Sean babbles blithely, digging himself in deeper and deeper and somehow helpless to stop it. For all he knows, curling outside Canada is an international crime, punishable by death. “Kind of like those bobsledders from Jamaica who competed in the Olympics. Remember them?”

“Then you’re an _Olympian_? Wow, Sean, I never met anyone who competed in the Olympics before. You must be a fantastic curler!” Elijah’s eyes are wide and filled with admiration.

“Actually,” Sean hears himself say in modest tones, “I was only an alternate on the U.S. team for the Sydney games. I never did make it to Australia. I came close, though.” He says this with such absolute conviction that he almost believes it himself, although to be honest, he has no idea if curling even _is_ an Olympic sport. 

“Geez, that must have been rough, to come so close and then not be able to go,” Elijah replies sympathetically.

“It was at the time, but I’ve gotten over it now. Life’s too short to spend on might-have-beens.” Considering that Sean still remembers with hideous, spine-crawling clarity how he misspelled the word ‘sicklocyte’ in the final round of the county spelling bee, realizing the moment the last letter left his mouth that he’d forgotten the ‘k’, this statement ranks right up there with the other untruths he’s been spouting.

“That’s what I’ve always said: life’s too short for regret. You’ve definitely got the right attitude, Sean,” Elijah says with approval. “So,” he wriggles his perfect ass on that now-hallowed spot on the table, and leans forward a little with the linen towel-wrapped frozen peas still clamped to his forehead, “tell me more about curling. I’m curious.”

“Well, let’s see,” Sean temporizes, going to the refrigerator. The fridge definitely isn’t as cool as usual when he opens the door, and it’s disconcerting for the light not to come on. Fortunately, Sean keeps his refrigerator rigidly organized- a place for everything and everything in its place- and the Ziploc bag with the organic baby greens is easily found even in the dark. He tries not to think about the marinating chicken breasts developing salmonella, botulism and who knows what else, and focuses on Elijah’s question. “Curling is a team sport, played on ice.”

That about sums up the extent of Sean’s curling expertise. He had been idly flipping through cable channels one evening and stumbled over a curling match. Struck dumb by the near-hallucinogenic bizarreness of a group of grown men shoving rocks across the ice while others (for reasons he still could not comprehend) wielded brooms with manic intensity just in front of said rocks, he’d watched the match for a few minutes, but not having a clue as to what it all meant, he’d soon lost interest. With a mental eye roll and a private sigh of ‘Canadians’, he’d punched the arrow on the remote to go to the next channel. 

Why oh why hadn’t he followed up by googling curling on the Internet, memorizing the rules and joining the Canadian National Curling Club (or whatever it was called) so that he’d be prepared for this moment? 

“Sort of like ice hockey, you mean?” Elijah asks tentatively, swinging his legs again.

“Oh no, it’s nothing like ice hockey,” Sean assures him, as he dumps the greens in a heavy blue-glazed pottery bowl he’d bought at an exclusive art gallery a few months earlier. He can barely repress a shudder at the thought of even apocryphal participation in a sport related to ice hockey. He loathes violent sports as much as he loathes camping, and ice hockey is worse than football. At least in football the tight-fitting uniforms let you admire a guy’s ass when they were piling on top of each other. Ice hockey didn’t even offer that minor diversion during the fights; everything worth looking at was hidden by the baggy uniforms. 

“The players don’t wear skates, and instead of a puck, there is a large rock that you push across the ice.” Sean holds out his arms in a circle to demonstrate the size. He has a feeling he’s exaggerating quite a bit but it’s been some months since he watched the curling match. “There are, um, two different kinds of players,” he goes on, the tiny hamsters in his brain running so frantically in their little wheels now that smoke should be coming out his ears, “called launchers and broomers. The launchers use their rocks to try and knock the other team’s rocks out of the way. Sort of like shuffleboard.” 

_Oh, way to go, Astin!_ Immediately Sean mentally cringes and wishes he hadn’t used that particular comparison. _Old men in support hose and ugly plaid shorts fastened with white plastic belts just below their sagging breasts play shuffleboard at retirement villages in Florida. Couldn’t you have come up with a sexier comparison? Something where you’re half-naked and covered in oil, like Grecian wrestling? Something you could offer to teach Elijah in the privacy of your bedroom, totally naked and covered in oil?_

“What do the broomers do?” Elijah doesn’t seem fazed by the shuffleboard comparison, but has those eclipse-like blue eyes with their shooting golden rays fastened on Sean’s face in apparent fascination.

“They sweep the ice in front of the rocks.”

“Really? Why do they do that?”

Sean should have known Elijah would ask that question. _Beats the hell out of me,_ he is tempted to reply, but instead he says, “To keep the ice neat and clean. Curlers tend to be kind of anal retentive.”

“Oh.” Elijah bites his lip as if to repress a smile. “I guess I can see why you’re into curling then. I noticed how clean your garbage cans are, Sean. Spotless, really.”

Sean hopes this is meant as a compliment, but he has a sneaking suspicion it might not be. 

“So, to get back to curling,” Elijah hastily adds, “How much do the curling rocks weigh?”

“Two hundred pounds,” Sean replies, pulling a number out of the air. He hasn’t got the faintest clue how much a curling rock actually weighs.

“Two hundred pounds?” repeats Elijah in an admiring voice. “Shit, you must be _really_ strong.” 

His eyes flick up and down Sean’s body again, and Sean barely manages to restrain himself from flexing his biceps and posing like a bodybuilder. For a vertically challenged guy who struggles constantly with his weight, it’s a heady feeling to be called ‘really strong’. Maybe not quite on a par with the longed-for ‘hot’, but better than ‘clever’, and light years better than ‘sweet’. However, Sean’s troublesome innate truthfulness, (which has been lying surprisingly low- possibly cowed by the rampageous Mindless Lust Sector) chooses that moment to wake up and remind him that, while he’s no ninety-eight pound weakling, Charles Atlas he’s not. 

So, instead of offering his arm to Elijah so the young man can feel the hardness of his bicep (and then, if things progress the way he hopes, other places even harder), he says, “It’s more a matter of technique than brute strength, Elijah. The ice is slick so you don’t have to force the rock. You move it back and forth a few times, give one long, steady push, and it just glides.” 

As the words leave his mouth, Sean has somewhat of the same sensation as he did years ago during the spelling bee. _Too late! Too late!_ his mind was crying, while he waited for the inevitable buzzer to sound and the giant vaudeville hook to reach out and pull him offstage. _Loser!_

But Elijah’s lower lip has been drooping steadily southward as Sean is speaking, and in the glow of the storm candles’ light, Sean catches a gleam that might just be drool appearing at the corner of his mouth. Those spellbinding eyes take on a glazed cast. “I, um,” Elijah says, and swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, “I, um, I’d sure love to see a demonstration of your curling technique, Sean.”

“You _would_?” Sean knows he sounds like an overeager puppy, but he can’t help himself. He has a feeling that things are finally starting to look up. He’s now exchanged several sentences with Elijah without zoning out. He’s even, dare he say it, had a _conversation_ with his angelic-looking ex-garbageman. Granted, his part of the conversation has been entirely made up of falsehoods, but still, it’s progress of a sort, and then, best of all, there is Elijah’s reaction to his curling description… 

Sean actually starts to feel a little woozy as he peers more closely and realizes that yes, it _is_ drool glistening at the corner of Elijah’s mouth. That gorgeous face swims beguilingly in front of him… _Oh no you don’t!_ he tells his zoning-out brain fiercely. _Not this time._

“I’ll be glad to demonstrate,” Sean enthuses, and instead of reaching for the bottle of ridiculously over-priced aged organic balsamic vinegar he bought for the salad dressing, he prepares to show off his curling technique. He assumes, as best he can recall it, the pose of a professional curler: crouched slightly with one leg in front of the other. He stands with his back to Elijah quite deliberately; his butt may not score a perfect 100 on the ass-o-meter, like Elijah’s, but it’s definitely somewhere in the 90s. 

He draws back his right arm with the elbow crooked, and glances over his shoulder at Elijah, who is watching raptly, the tip of his pink tongue protruding slightly and the candle’s flame dancing in eyes that have clearly just been raised from scrutiny of Sean’s almost-but-not-quite-perfect ass. Exhilaration fills him. Yes, things are definitely looking up now! In more ways than one, as the sudden tightening of his groin reminds him.

“The motion goes like this.” Exuberantly, Sean moves his arm like a piston: forward, back, forward, back, forwardback, forwardback… Then he lunges forward with his entire body, thrusting hard with his arm, as if propelling a 200 lb (or whatever the hell they actually weigh) curling rock across the ice.

There is an audible _crack_. Sean lets out a yelp as an excruciating pain shoots through his lower back, and he collapses face first on the hard, cold Italian tile floor. 

“Oooohhhhh,” he moans, and it’s definitely not the sort of moan he’d been hoping he’d moan in Elijah’s presence. He can’t move. His back has seized up like a car engine that’s thrown a rod.

“Sean! Oh my god!” Elijah exclaims. There is a sound of something dropping with a wet splat, and then of sneaker rubber squeaking on tile. In an instant, Elijah is kneeling by Sean’s side, anxiously touching his arm. “Are you all right?”

“I threw my back out,” Sean groans, a groan made up of equal parts pain and humiliation. “Oc-occup-pational hazard.” Even now he can’t stop piling untruth on top of untruth.

“Oh my god! Your curling career could be in jeopardy!” Elijah sounds alarmed. “We’d better get you to the emergency room right away.” He puts an arm around Sean and attempts gently to move him.

“Nooo… no emergency room,” Sean gasps frantically. “George Clooney.”

“What?” The arm around him stills.

“George Clooney. The emergency room doctor. You’ll fall in love with him and get married, I just know it.” Sean is aware that he sounds totally insane, but he doesn’t care. The fantasy is so vivid to his pain-addled brain.

There is a silence. 

“Sean,” Elijah says, and Sean wishes he could see Elijah’s face, because he has a feeling that (despite the urgency of the situation) the young man is trying desperately not to laugh. “There are three things you should know. The first is that I don’t find George Clooney particularly attractive. He’s simply not my type. The second is that he only played a doctor on TV. He’s not one in real life, so the odds of him treating you at the emergency room are pretty remote. And the third is that George Clooney isn’t gay.”

“He would be if he met you,” Sean insists stubbornly. “I’m not taking any chances.”

“You know, I think that’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me,” Elijah says, sounding touched.

“I’m sure it was just a fluke,” Sean mutters pessimistically.

“What?”

“Nothing. Look, Elijah, this isn’t the first time my back has seized up like this. I don’t need to go to the emergency room. I need you to walk on me.” Finally, Sean has said something that is neither false nor insane. 

“ _Walk on you?_ ” Elijah’s startled response indicates that he thinks Sean’s sanity is still very much in doubt.

“It’s the only thing that will unlock my back,” Sean hastens to explain. “My Shiatsu masseuse and my chiropractor both recommended it, and it’s worked a couple of times.”

“Oh. Well, all right. But shit, Sean, I’m afraid I might make things worse.”

“Elijah, considering that I can’t even move right now, I really don’t think you need to worry about that.”

“Oh. Well then, here goes…” Elijah stands up.

“Ah, you’ll need to take off your shoes and socks first.” Sean feels obliged to point this out. He wishes he could say that Elijah needs to take _all_ his clothes off first, but it seems doubtful that Elijah will buy into that.

“Okay.” Elijah swiftly stoops and undoes the laces of his Chucks. He kicks them away then tugs off the dingy white athletic socks he is wearing underneath them. Out of the corner of his eye, Sean can see Elijah’s bare feet. They are narrow with high arches and long, elegant toes. Sean is seized with a desire to suck on those toes (assuming they have been washed with disinfectant soap first, of course). Hmm. It seems he has a previously undiscovered foot fetish, too. Or perhaps what he has is an Elijah fetish.

“You have beautiful feet, Elijah,” he murmurs dreamily, thinking that maybe he’s willing to take a chance and suck on those long, elegant toes even without the washing first. He can always gargle with Listerine afterward.

“They’re just feet, but, um, thanks, Sean.” 

_Just feet?_ thinks Sean. That’s like saying the Mona Lisa is just a painting.

The feet move out of Sean’s range of sight, and the next moment he feels a tentative pressure in the middle of his back. 

“Sean, are you absolutely sure you want me to do this?”

“Absolutely.” _Step on me, baby, step on me,_ he almost begs.

“All right. Here goes,” Elijah says again, and then a second foot joins the first, and the full weight of Sean’s ex-garbageman is standing on his back. 

Ahh… it’s sheer bliss. Elijah is just heavy enough without being too heavy. Perfect. Sean lets out a long groan as his rigid back starts to relax and his half-hard cock presses satisfyingly into the unyielding hardness of the tile. _I’m between a cock and a hard place,_ he thinks deliriously, and almost giggles like Elijah. 

“Oh fuck!” Elijah exclaims. “I’m hurting you.”

“No, no, not at all. Just move around, slowly, and concentrate on my lower back.” Oh god, if Elijah was to jump ship now, Sean might die.

Elijah moves around as instructed, taking tiny careful steps to the accompaniment of Sean’s ululating moans and groans. It sounds like Sean’s having the world’s longest and most intense orgasm, but he can’t help himself. The sensation of those beautiful bare feet digging into his back and the top of his buttocks is better than any orgasm Sean has ever had. 

“How many guys have done this to you anyway?” Elijah asks after a minute or so. He sounds distinctly jealous.

“Just my dad and my brother,” Sean says.

“Oh. Well. That’s okay then.” Elijah presses down firmly into the swell of Sean’s ass with his heel, and Sean moans. 

He is able to crane his neck around enough to glance up at Elijah, and from his prone position he has a very good angle on the young man’s crotch. There’s no doubt whatsoever that there’s a distinct bulge behind the faded denim. Sean grins goofily, and silently blesses all Canadians and their crazy pastimes. 

“Elijah,” he blurts out in the delirium of the moment, “you won’t ever have to eat cat food again, I promise.”

“What?” The digging heel stops digging.

“I’ll take care of you,” Sean rushes on. “Help you find a job, a car, a place to stay.”

“Well geez, that’s awfully,” Sean cringes, “sweet of you, Sean, but I’m fine, really.” His voice trembles a little as he adds, “I’ve never had to eat cat food, honestly.”

“You’re an unemployed ex-garbageman, Elijah. How can you be fine?” _Let me take care of you, please…_ Sean thinks.

“Oh _that_ ,” Elijah says, sounding amused, and starts kneading Sean’s lower back with his long, elegant toes. “I only hung in there as long as I did because of you. Otherwise I would’ve quit after the first week. Let’s face it, Sean, I suck at being a garbageman. Hell, I only took the stupid job in the first place because my dad wanted me to.”

Sean is stunned into flabbergasted silence, too stunned even to groan as those toes work their magic on his back. “Your- your dad wants you to be a _garbageman_?” What kind of abnormal father wished for his son to have a career in refuse disposal? A doctor, a lawyer, even an accountant… these were the aspirations most men had for their children, not picking up someone’s smelly garbage. 

Elijah giggles that heavenly giggle. “I guess I should explain. My dad owns the company. He wants me to work in the business, and that’s why he made me take the job, so I’d have a better understanding of what it involves.”

Sean is suddenly reeling. “Elijah, do you mean to tell me that your dad is Warren Wood, the Refuse King?”

“Yeah, that’s my dad,” Elijah sighs, as though he's revealed a guilty secret. 

Sean lets out a groan, but it’s not a groan of ecstasy this time. _Oh my god,_ he thinks, feeling like the world’s biggest idiot. Wood Waste and Refuse Removal is a client of Tell, Pearce, Arnaz and Astin. Sean knows, practically to the penny, exactly what Warren Wood is worth. 

Elijah isn’t a poor, starving ex-garbageman at all. He’s the son of one of the richest men in southern California.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sean fumbles his way to a happy ending. OMG, it's a miracle!

“Then the Porsche parked outside is yours?” Sean asks, wishing the Italian tile was actually quicksand and he could rapidly sink out of sight and take his idiocy with him. How could he have been so stupid? Now that he knows the truth, everything about Elijah shouts ‘money’. The legitimately-parked-in-front-of-his-house car, the trendy haircut, the artfully ripped jeans, the diamond stud that isn’t faux at all, the expensive Riesling that hasn’t taken Elijah’s very last penny to buy…

“No, it belongs to my dad,” Elijah replies, flexing his toes. “My Mini is in the shop and I had to borrow his car.” He sighs. “I hate driving the Porsche. It’s so pretentious.”

Oh great. Just great. Elijah hates pretension. Sean, with his pathetic delusions of helping his poor, unemployed ex-garbageman and showing him the kind of lifestyle he’d probably never come close to experiencing, is officially screwed. Warren Wood the Refuse King has an estate the size of Switzerland, a mansion with more bathrooms than Sean’s home has rooms, and his net worth makes Sean’s look like chump change. What Elijah is looking for is someone genuine and real, not a pale imitation of Frasier Crane, an obsessive-compulsive neat freak who prides himself on having the cleanest garbage cans in the neighborhood (possibly even the entire state).

Sean is a blind, vain, pretentious idiot, and a liar to boot with all his insane blather about curling. He should simply hand Elijah over to George Clooney the Closeted Gay Emergency Room Doctor (who, despite Elijah’s assurances, he feels certain is still a threat) right now and give up. But he’s not so big an idiot that he doesn’t recognize that the best thing ever to come into his life arrived on a stinky, noisy garbage truck and is currently kneading his back with long, elegant (not to mention suckable) toes.

So Sean decides he won’t let George have Elijah without at least trying to reform his shallow, meaningless life first. He can become genuine and real, god damn it. He’ll start by throwing out his Gucci loafers and his Aubusson carpets, selling his collection of Chinese export porcelain and even (if it kills him) his Duncan Phyfe sofa. He’ll refurnish his entire house with furniture from Target or Ikea. He’ll trade in his Lexus for a Geo. Start buying his clothes at Kmart instead of on Rodeo Drive. Get that tattoo, maybe even (shudder) a piercing… 

“Sean?” Elijah’s voice penetrates the orgy of self-reinvention. It’s clear that it’s not the first time he’s said Sean’s name.

Sean realizes he’s zoned out yet again, but sadly, it’s not Elijah’s angelic hotness that has caused it this time, but his own very un-angelic stupidity. If he were to turn up at the Pearly Gates right now, Sean thinks despondently, a loud buzzer would sound, and St. Peter would have him dragged down to Hell by the giant vaudeville hook of God. 

“Yeah?” he says glumly.

“How’s your back doing? You haven’t, um, groaned in a while.”

“It’s nearly better,” says Sean. This is yet another lie, albeit a white one. In fact, his back feels pretty much entirely better. Elijah’s magic feet with their suckable toes have worked a miracle. But at the disastrous rate things are going, this might be his only opportunity to have Elijah on top of him, and he’s determined to make it last. “But not quite, so if you wouldn’t mind...”

“Sure,” Elijah says agreeably. “It’s actually sort of fun, now that I’m not afraid of squashing you or anything.” He continues to knead Sean’s lower back with his toes, _left, right, left, right_ , just like a cat. Sean is too despondent to purr, however. 

“You know,” Elijah goes on, sounding remarkably cheerful considering that he’s currently stuck inside Sean’s Giant House O’Pretension, “I was really pissed at my dad when he told me I had to work a garbage route. I don’t want to spend my life in the refuse business, Sean; I never have. It’s not that I’m a snob or anything. My dad works his ass off, and I would never look down on what he does. I just have different goals for my life, that’s all.”

Probably working with starving children in third world countries, or saving baby seals from being clubbed to death, Sean thinks morosely, while he, Mr. Pretension, plays squash and attends wine tastings.

“But shit,” Elijah says, amazement lacing his voice, “it turns out I actually owe my dad one, ‘cause otherwise I never would have met you. It was probably the best moment of my life when you ran after me with that cat food can.”

This jolts Sean out of his doldrums. “It was?” he gasps, and feels a purr coming on.

“Fuck yeah. To be honest, I was gonna look up your name and phone number when I got back to the office and give you a call, see if you wanted to have dinner with me, but it was so fucking awesome that you asked me first. Sean, you have no idea how much people look down on garbagemen. These six weeks on the garbage route were a real eye opener, let me tell you. Most guys wouldn’t give me a second glance, simply because I was picking up their trash. But not _you_.”

This is said with such heartfelt admiration that Sean starts to wonder if he really will have to sell his Duncan Phyfe or get his nipple pierced after all. Wonder of wonders, maybe Elijah actually likes Sean the way he is, pretentious, obsessive-compulsive tendencies notwithstanding. Maybe Elijah thinks Sean _is_ genuine and real. Maybe he’ll even eventually say that he thinks Sean is ‘hot’! _Whoa, Astin_ , Sean cautions himself. _That might be getting a little overly-optimistic._

“And, well, I hope you won’t think this is too weird,” Elijah adds, “but I kept the cat food can.”

“You did?” There’s a distinct purr in his voice as he says this. He stretches a little (carefully so as not to dislodge Elijah) as those supple toes continue to knead his back, _left, right, left, right_ , and lets out his first groan in some time.

“Uh-huh. I, um, I planted a begonia in it and put it on my windowsill,” he confesses. “Of course, I disinfected the can with bleach first so it doesn’t smell.” Elijah is clearly growing to understand his audience. 

Sean has always loathed begonias, horrible, plastic-looking flowers that they are. But now he wonders how he could have failed to recognize their beauty up until this moment, and vows to hit the local garden center as soon as possible and buy enough begonias to cover his entire property. 

A sudden thought occurs to him, and he frowns. “I hope Behemoth didn’t give you a hard time about keeping the can.” A hint of a tigerish growl dislodges the cat-like purr as he imagines Behemoth attempting to wrest the can from Elijah’s grasp. 

“Behemoth?” repeats Elijah in confusion.

“That surly fellow who worked with you on the garbage truck,” Sean explains. _The one I wanted to punch in the jaw a dozen different times at least._

Elijah giggles. “Oh, you mean Clive. Oh, Clive is okay. He was just disappointed that I wouldn’t go out with him, and that made him a little grumpy sometimes. That and the fact that I kept dropping garbage cans, of course.”

“Behemoth is _gay_?!” Sean boggles. But he suddenly has a sneaking sympathy for the man. Riding all day on a garbage truck with angelic perfection and knowing that it can never be yours could make even the most easy-going person grumpy. 

“Yeah, he’s gay,” Elijah replies, sounding amused. “But even if I hadn’t already seen you through your kitchen window, I would’ve turned Clive down. I’m not into bears.” He pauses and adds slyly, “Otters are definitely more my type.”

If Sean’s emotional life was a red-dotted line on a graph, the peaks and troughs of the past few hours would be nauseating to look at, like a roller coaster ride designed by a sadist. But he’s spiked a new high with Elijah’s admission, because if ever a gay guy fit the definition of an ‘otter’, it’s Sean Astin. _Yes!_ He gives a tiny fist pump against the tile. 

“But speaking of cat food cans, where _is_ your cat, Sean? I’d love to meet it.”

“Oh, I don’t have a cat,” Sean replies absent-mindedly, his thoughts still occupied with a very different sort of animal. He squints awkwardly down to check if any trace of chest hair is visible in the vee of his button-down, and smiles deliriously to himself when he sees that there is.

“Then what’s with all the empty cat food cans?” Elijah asks. “They were in your trash every pick-up day.” 

He doesn’t have to add that the reason he knows this is his incredible ineptitude as a garbageman, and a nostalgic glow fills Sean as he recalls the many times Elijah dropped his garbage can, with a guilty curse and an apologetic glance over his shoulder for the mess the burst bag made on his driveway. 

“Well, I suppose you could say I _sort_ of have a cat,” Sean amends his previous statement. “There’s a stray- a little black and white cat- that started hanging around the neighborhood a couple of months ago. She seemed kind of hungry, so I started feeding her. She comes by every day now for her breakfast and dinner.” He hesitates, wondering whether to reveal yet another shining example of his lameness. Oh, what the hell, he decides. “I, um… I call her ‘Boots’. She has these cute little white paws, you see, and it looks like she’s wearing boots.” 

Sean has become quite attached to Boots, as a matter of fact, and has sometimes spent a good hour or more sitting on the back deck talking to the cat. Boots has gotten to the point where she’ll let him pet her, and he’s been considering inviting her inside to live, although the thought of black and white cat hairs all over the furniture, not to mention having to clean out a litter box, has been holding him back.

There is a silence, and then Elijah makes a sort of snuffling sound as if he has a sinus infection. “God, Sean, you are so… so…”

Sean cringes and says the word before Elijah can: “Sweet. Yeah, I know.”

“Actually, I was going to say ‘kind-hearted’, but you are incredibly sweet, too.” Elijah snuffles again and clears his throat. “But why do you say it like that, as if there’s something wrong with being sweet?”

“Because… because…” _Puppies are sweet. Kittens are sweet. Frolicking lambs and baby bunny rabbits are sweet_. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I’ve sort of been hoping you’d say that I’m, well, attractive. Or possibly even,” Sean grits his teeth and takes the plunge, like one of those crazy people who dive off cliffs in Mexico, “hot.”

More silence. The toe kneading ceases. “Is your back better now, Sean?” Elijah asks quietly.

Oh god. Sean’s entire body is aflame with the heat of his embarrassment. Elijah will probably have to jump off his back before his feet get scorched by it. His dive from the cliff has turned into a belly flop of monumental, Titanic-like proportions. Elijah can’t even respond to Sean’s words, they are so utterly ridiculous. Oh, why couldn’t he have kept his mouth shut? Why? Maybe Elijah isn’t looking for someone ‘hot’. Maybe all he wants is a cuddly otter to snuggle up against. Maybe the baseball-obsessed cretin who broke Elijah’s heart put him off sex forever.

“It’s all better, thanks.” There’s no point in lying, Sean thinks, not when the guy you lust after thinks you’re about as attractive as week-old road kill. 

“Good.” With that single, unembellished word, Elijah steps down, and Sean nearly whimpers at the loss of his ex-garbageman’s precious weight on the small of his back. “Would you turn over?” Elijah asks, still in that quiet voice.

Silently, Sean does, and not even the ease with which he rolls onto his now pain-free back can raise his dashed spirits, especially when he gazes up at the angelically beautiful vision standing over him, illumined by the soft glow of the storm candles. _He’s too good for me. Way, way, way too good. I must have been mad to think someone like him could possibly find someone like me even remotely-_

“Oof!” The breath rushes out of Sean’s mouth as the angelic vision plops his perfect ass down on Sean’s abdomen, rests his elbows on Sean’s chest, and his chin in his own hands. 

Elijah gives him a long, considering look and then announces, “You know, I was really confused at first about what was going on tonight, ‘cause man, have you ever been giving out mixed signals. But Sean, I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with you.”

_You don’t have tell me_ , Sean wants to say, _I know what’s wrong with me. I’m needy and pretentious and vain and a neat freak and I care too much about material things and…_

“Your problem,” Elijah marches on, “is that you think too much. I mean, look at you! I can practically see the wheels turning. I’m surprised smoke isn’t coming out your ears.” 

_Oh god, it’s true,_ Sean thinks, wondering a bit hysterically if he ought to name the little hamsters running frantically in his brain. _I do think too much. I overanalyze everything. I have to pick it to bits and agonize over it and…_

“Sean!” Elijah shakes his head in exasperation. “You’re doing it again. Stop thinking, okay? I want you to listen to me for a second.”

“Sorry,” Sean says contritely, and to keep from thinking again focuses on the sharp dig of Elijah’s pointy elbows into his chest, rather than the blissful press of Elijah’s crotch into his abdomen. 

“This might technically be our first date,” Elijah begins, “but we spent an awful lot of time staring at each other through your kitchen window, and it felt like we were holding a conversation every time our eyes met. Okay, maybe you couldn’t tell me what you do for a living or where you went to school or what your favorite music is, but you didn’t despise me for being a garbageman, and you didn’t mind me spilling your garbage all over the place. So what you _were_ telling me was that you were really nice and, yeah, sweet, and I was pretty darned sure you were telling me you were gay, ‘cause I didn’t think you’d be checking out my ass like that if you weren’t.” Elijah grins as Sean blushes a little, and then he goes on, “But I think maybe you missed some things _I_ was trying to tell you, and so I want you to look into my eyes _right now_ and hear them this time.”

So, his heart racing with a mixture of anticipation and dread of what he might hear, Sean does. It takes a few seconds for him to recover from the giddy, breathless plummet into depthless blue, but when he does, the words are waiting and he _can_ hear them perfectly this time: 

_You are so hot, Sean,_ Elijah is saying. _Sososososososososo hot._

_Really?_

_Yep. A thousand burning suns aren’t as hot as you are._

_Wow. No shit._

_No shit. As far as I’m concerned, George Clooney has nothing on you._

_You’re not just saying that, are you?_

_What do **you** think?_

A brief physical demonstration in the form of wriggling against Sean’s abdomen accompanies this.

_Wow, you really **do** mean it._

_Yep. Trust me, you weren’t the only one doing some asset checking on the sly. So, Mr. Hottie, now that we’ve finally gotten that all cleared up, you ready to demonstrate your curling technique for me again?_

_What about dinner?_

_I already had an awful lot of cheese, and besides we can eat the tiramisu off each other later- after we work up an appetite curling._

Sean can’t help it. The sudden meteoric rise of the red-dotted line, straight off the graph into the stratosphere, is more than he can take. He starts thinking again, despite himself. This can’t really be happening, he thinks. Angelic perfection is sitting on his stomach and talking about them eating tiramisu off each other… The room starts to spin around him, and the words ‘eating tiramisu off each other’ reverberate through his brain.

Elijah immediately recognizes the symptoms, and institutes emergency zoning out procedures. “Nuh-uh, Sean,” he says aloud, and swooping in, slams his mouth down over Sean’s and kisses him, clearly feeling that drastic measures are necessary.

The darkened kitchen with its cold hard Italian tile floor is suddenly transmuted into a sunny meadow filled with wildflowers (Sean hopes there’s no ragweed, though, as it makes him sneeze) and butterflies and baby bunny rabbits and frolicking lambs. Birds are singing and fluffy clouds are sailing by overhead and best of all, Elijah is there, and he’s kissing Sean. He’s using a lot of tongue, and he’s moaning deep in his throat, and he tastes like… well, like cheese, of course, especially Chevrefeuille, and also Pinot, and it’s hands down (or rather hands cupped around Elijah’s perfect ass) the best wine and cheese party Sean has ever been to.

And then, alas, just as the Mindless Lust sector is about to move in and claim a total victory, Sean’s innate truthfulness steps stubbornly in the way and blocks it. _Noooooo,_ his mind cries. _Not now! Can’t it wait?_ But from the way it’s glaring at him, it’s not about to stand any more nonsense.

“Elijah, stop,” Sean gasps, after tearing his mouth away from Elijah’s (a feat that, in his opinion, should earn him some Brownie points with St. Peter when he arrives at the Pearly Gates). He struggles up into a sitting position, holding Elijah off by the shoulders. “Before we go any further, I have a confession to make.”

“Shit, Sean… Can’t it wait?” Elijah begs, and the sight of his bony knees peeking coyly through the ripped denim as he sits astride Sean’s thighs tips the scales in Mindless Lust’s direction- but only momentarily.

“That’s the same thing my mind asked,” Sean replies with a resigned sigh, “but I’m afraid it can’t.” 

He wants to cry, to wail, to shake his fist at the innate truthfulness that won’t let him continue what they’ve started without him coming clean about his non-existent curling career first.

“The truth is, I’m not a curler and I haven’t got any curling technique to demonstrate. I don’t know shit about curling, Elijah. I’ve only ever seen it once on TV, months and months ago. All that stuff about launchers and broomers? I completely made it up.” He reddens. “And I wasn’t an alternate for the Olympic team.” 

Elijah has been listening to him with remarkable calm, all things considered, and by the time Sean is done with his shameful confession, a tiny smile has actually appeared on those luscious, cheese-anointed lips. “Well, to be honest, Sean, I did kind of wonder, because the Sydney Olympics were the Summer Games, and curling sounds like a winter sport.”

“Oh god,” Sean groans, feeling like an even bigger idiot than ever, if that’s possible. He can’t even tell an effective lie. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Elijah shrugs. “I dunno. It seemed kind of funny at first, with you talking about how broomers are anal retentive and sweep the ice to keep it neat and clean. Then you got into that pushing and gliding stuff, and I wondered if maybe it was your way of turning me on.” 

“Oh god,” Sean repeats, mortified.

“If so, let me tell you, it was working like a charm until you threw your back out.”

“I didn’t say that to turn you on, Elijah.” Oh god, could he possibly be any lamer? 

“Then why did you?” Elijah asks curiously, but without a trace of upset or anger.

“Because you’re _you_ and I’m _me_ ,” Sean says simply.

“Um, no offense, Sean, but that doesn’t really make much sense. Of course you’re you and I’m me. Who else _would_ we be?”

“Elijah,” Sean blurts out, “I play squash.”

“Yeah? So do I. Not very well, I’m afraid, but there’s something kind of satisfying about smashing the bejesus out of a squash ball.”

Sean boggles. “You play squash?”

“Sure. My dad had a squash court built at our place a few years ago. You can come over and play with me,” Elijah says enthusiastically. “You’ll probably whup my ass, but I won’t be a sore loser, I promise.” Then he looks struck. “Is that why you made up all that stuff about curling? Because you didn’t want me to know you play squash?”

“I was afraid you’d think I’m, well, boring and lame. It’s bad enough that I’m an accountant.”

“What’s wrong with being an accountant?” Elijah seems genuinely puzzled. “You know, Sean, I’m beginning to think it’s a really good thing we met, and not just because I find you incredibly hot. For a guy who has as much going for him as you do, you sure don’t seem to realize it. It’s about time someone set you straight.” With a little bounce that presses their bodies briefly and intimately together in a way that sends Mindless Lust steamrolling right over Innate Truthfulness, Elijah jumps to his feet and holds out his hand. “Up you go. I’m not taking any chances on you messing up your back again having sex on the kitchen floor.”

Despite his garbage hauling ineptitude, Elijah hauls Sean to his feet with surprising strength, so that their bodies bang together the way they had in the foyer earlier- a lifetime earlier it seems now. But Elijah still feels and smells like heaven.

“Elijah,” Sean says emotionally as he breathes in that heavenly scent, “you’re an angel.”

Elijah giggles, which only confirms his angelhood, and replies, “Shit, I sure hope I’m not. ‘Cause after I get done doing all the things to you that I intend to, I’ll be kicked out of heaven for sure.”

_Don’t worry. I’ll follow wherever they send you._ As Elijah’s eyes meet his, he knows that Elijah has heard his words. He holds out his hand and Elijah takes it, and after picking up a storm candle with his free hand, Sean leads him through the dim, quiet house. The rain has stopped at last, and the power will no doubt come back on soon. But Sean doesn’t particularly care if it does. 

In fact, as they climb the stairs to the second floor, passing the meticulously spaced and precisely aligned framed photographs of Sean’s family that cover the walls, he decides it’s a good thing the power hasn’t come back on yet. A lifetime of over-thinking can’t be cured in a few minutes, after all, and despite the way Elijah’s hip bumps gently against his as they walk and how his fingers feel tangled with Sean’s own, it’s impossible not to start thinking again and worrying about what Elijah’s reaction to Sean’s naked body will be. Sean has a feeling that Elijah is one of those guys who like to do it with the lights on, but if there is no power, there can be no lights, thankfully. He’s sure that Elijah will like his chest hair if he’s into otters, but what about Sean’s stomach? It’s not as flat and hard as he’d like it to be, and then there’s his…

“Sean, you’re doing it again,” Elijah scolds, and pushes him against the stairwell wall and kisses him, causing a silver-framed photo of his Great-Grandparents, sitting at rigid attention in a Model T, to tilt crazily. Sean doesn’t even notice their disapproving glares, and barely manages not to drop the candle.

When they finally reach Sean’s bedroom, Elijah stands there for a minute, taking it in, and Sean, seeing it once more through those younger, hipper, entirely unpretentious eyes, almost groans aloud. The thick cream-colored carpet is so perfectly vacuumed that the fibers all point in the same direction. The antique rosewood four-poster bed is made up with a painstaking neatness that would have done credit to the strictest drill sergeant in the army. An olive striped duvet covers a plump down-filled comforter, and there are color-coordinated floral sheets from Ralph Lauren beneath it. Half a dozen pillows covered in matching striped and floral lace-edged shams are arranged with fussy precision against the headboard. The antique rosewood dressing table against the opposite wall looks like a museum piece, with its orderly row of toiletries and freshly waxed gleam. The deep gold damask curtains at the windows are looped back with olive satin cords, and the easy chair is upholstered in cream and gold chintz. The bedside table holds a tidy stack of books, reading glasses in a little silver stand and a combination alarm clock/white noise machine. 

“Geez, my mom is gonna love you, Sean,” Elijah remarks, advancing into the room. “I’m such a slob. I hardly ever make my own bed or hang my clothes up. It drives her nuts.” He casts a mischievous look back over his shoulder. “There’s something you forgot, though.”

“No, I didn’t,” Sean says hastily (and with justifiable pride). “They’re in the top drawer of the table next to the bed.” _And I’m actually going to get to use them. YES!_ he exults as Mindless Lust capers with glee.

“Not those,” Elijah replies, “I meant the mints for the pillows.” 

Laughing, he steps hastily out of reach as Sean makes a grab for him. Then he launches himself onto the bed, scattering pillows left and right, and turns over on his back. “You are without a doubt the neatest person I’ve ever met,” he says, shaking his head. “It’ll do you good to have a little chaos in your life, Sean.”

Sean can only agree. A little chaos in his life _will_ do him good—if the chaos is named Elijah, that is. Elijah’s pale bony knees wink at him from the rips in his jeans, his long, elegant (not to mention suckable) toes wiggle enticingly against the duvet. Elijah flings his arms wide, scattering more pillows, and smiles a smile no angel ever would have dared to smile. 

“Ready to get chaotic?” he asks.

God is Sean ever ready. He dives onto the bed (after blowing out the candle first, of course, and removing his Mephistos, although he doesn’t bother to undo the laces, which is definitely a sign of progress) and this time instead of belly flopping, he lands squarely in Elijah’s waiting arms.

Inevitably the moment the last piece of clothing is tugged off and flung away, and Sean is completely naked and kneeling above Elijah, there is a flicker, a hum, and the lights come back on. 

Sean barely notices. 

But then, considering what Elijah has just started doing to him with his mouth and where, that’s hardly a surprise. 

 

** Three days later **

_Rumble, rumble._

_Screeeeeech._

Sean sits bolt upright in a panic. Oh no! He’s overslept. If he doesn’t get downstairs to the kitchen immediately, he’ll miss the highlight of his day. Just as he’s about to fling back the covers, memory comes flooding back, and he settles back against the pillows with a contented sigh, listening to the patter of rain against the windows and the muted growl of a garbage truck engine. 

A shit-eating grin spreads across Sean’s face as his eyes wander around his once-tidy bedroom. It looks like a tornado has passed through it. Pillows, books, discarded clothes, torn condom wrappers and dirty dishes litter the floor. The toiletries on the dressing table have been pushed to one side, the chair is tipped over, and there is a sweaty handprint on the mirror. The wrinkled duvet is dotted with tiny black and white hairs that belong to Boots, who is curled up napping on the easy chair. Boots had accepted the invitation to move into Sean’s house the previous day, and it doesn’t look like she’s planning on un-inviting herself any time soon- if ever.

Chaos has invaded Sean’s life, and he couldn’t be happier.

“Fuck, I’m glad I’m not out there,” says a sleepy voice. A tousled auburn head emerges from the covers, and Elijah blinks owlishly at Sean and then smiles. 

_Good morning._

_Good morning._

_Up for some more curling practice, Seanie?_

_What do you think?_

_Hmm. I’d say **definitely** up._

There is a sound of a revving engine as the garbage truck starts up and rumbles off down the street.

Sean hears it go without regret. He no longer has to answer its suburban mating call. He’s caught his garbageman at last, and he means never to let him go.

~end~


End file.
